


The wolf knows reasons human knows not

by Charlie_Bb



Series: Of mating and other disasters [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:52:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie_Bb/pseuds/Charlie_Bb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wolf found its mate and Derek finds himself wondering about it, because the wolf knows reason he knows not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The wolf knows reasons human knows not

**Author's Note:**

> Little fanfiction that came out of nowhere. Unbeta'd.

**The wolf knows reasons human knows not**

 

“Wanna mate?”

Derek looks away from the yard and suddenly turns to Stiles, eyes wide open and a blank expression on his face.

“What?”

“Just asked if you wanna mate, not so hard to understand.”

Derek looks confused and, god, did Stiles just say that for real? Because there’s no way in hell he actually knows what he’s babbling about. Still, he seems so confident with his own words.

“ _What?_ ”

Now, Derek needs to cast light on this thing because, really, half of the times Stiles doesn’t know what he’s saying and the other half is just incoherent stream of even more incoherent words coming out of his stupid mouth.

“Look, I need help researching this Kanima stuff”, Stiles says and looks at him as if he were gone stupid all of a sudden. “Bestiary is not so easy to understand, and Scott’s somewhere howling at the full moon, and your pack is just a bunch of terrifying psychotic puppies, and I can’t do everything on my own, and you’re the Alpha, so it’s your damn duty to help me out on this. So, wanna mate?”

Stiles stands there, out in the school parking lot, clearly waiting for Derek to answer. So, Stiles _really_ doesn’t know what the hell he’s babbling on about.

“Get in the car” is all that Derek says, reaching for the driver seat and turning the engine on. The Camaro softly roars underneath him, a warm familiar thunder that makes the tension on his shoulders relax a little bit. It takes Stiles a couple of seconds to process and eventually understand what’s just happened, and he follows Derek in the car.

“Great, Sourwolf wants to cooperate.”

When Derek gives him a pretty much homicidal look Stiles gulps, his eyes opened in fear, and moves uncomfortably on his seat.

“Yeah, big bad Alpha, totally got it”, Stiles says. “Now, we need a place. With electricity, so I can connect my computer. And a dictionary for Latin wouldn’t be too bad either, even though I guess I could find one online.”

Derek takes a deep breath trying not to tear Stiles’ tongue off with his teeth, those two stupid words repeating on loop in his mind.

_Wanna mate?_

*

Problem is –the real, actual problem is that Stiles doesn’t act or talk like every other human being on this Earth. He lives in his own world, so fast and confusing no one else could ever understand a bit of it. Stiles is this kind of hyperactive, always moving teenager, and not even his mouth can actually keep up with the speed of his always running mind.

Stiles is different. The wolf inside of Derek’s chest noticed, and howled loudly the very first time they met.

Because the wolf knows reasons Derek knows not, and Derek couldn’t really understand what that first howling was for. For Stiles is Stiles, smart and stupid, terrible and fantastic human being, and the smell of his made the wolf jump in Derek’ stomach. When Stiles was in danger the wolf growled, loud and clear and terrible, and Derek was still not allowed to understand why. Because since when they met Stiles’ been pissing him off, annoying him with his always too talkative mouth, bothering the hell out of him in every possible, imaginable way.

Stiles makes Derek angry on a good day, and terribly furious on a bad one. Stiles’ babblings scratch Derek’ skin making him want to tear it off with his own teeth before words could ever get the chance to penetrate underneath the surface. Stiles makes Derek’s heartbeat race faster and faster every single second they breathe the same air and anger burns deep inside of him as liquid fire running through his veins. And the wolf, oh, the wolf whines in satisfaction when the anger rises, breathing it in and being enforced by the strength of it.

The wolf loves the anger Stiles unconsciously grows in Derek, fills himself with it, bathes in it with a low growl of satisfaction coming out of his mouth.

And when Stiles asks that “ _wanna mate_ ”, hell, the wolf howls louder than ever before and Derek feels his chest aching in a joy so painful he’s not sure he can stand it.

The problem is, the wolf howled his big ‘ _yes_ ’ and, well. Shit happens, right?

*

An even bigger problem is that Stiles is not aware the wolf has chosen him as his mate, and Derek has no idea how to deal with it. He can’t just go and say ‘ _Hey, we don’t know each other much but,  ya know, you’re my mate_ ’, can he? He’s not even sure he _likes_ Stiles that much.

The kid is a freaking anger accelerator, and Derek doesn’t feel like he’s giving it his best when Stiles’ around. He feels like he’s not able to control himself instead, like he cannot control the wolf always trying to get out and run in the wild when Stiles is somewhere near. With Stiles, Derek feels like he has to learn to take the grip on his inner wolf all over again, a never-ending fight between human and beast.

Derek has to keep the wolf calm and quiet, and Stiles knows nothing about it.

So, with Stiles around Derek is forced to push harder to do his best, to be at his best, because of Stiles.

His mother once told him that the wolf seeks a companion, someone to complete him, but that doesn’t always mean getting along well. Love, she said, is a delicate, complicated thing, and when you find someone you have to do your best for, well, that’s actually what mating really means. Finding someone who will make you better one way or another, someone you’ll try to be better for willingly or not.

So, back to the point, Derek’s not sure he likes Stiles so much, but the wolf adores him already.

Thing is, Stiles is Stiles, and Derek always wants to bang his stupid teenage head against a wall, or shut him up for good ‘cause the kid definitely knows not how or when to stop talking. But when Derek comes back to the abandoned train wagon, well, he could be missing that babbling. A bit. Probably it’s just because of the wolf.

What Stiles does makes Derek angrier every time. As for that night in the pool, where Stiles shouldn’t have been because it obviously was a fucking dangerous place to be with the Kanima around. When Derek saw him there the wolf howled and a cold feeling took over Derek’s guts while a burning pain spread through his chest.

When the Kanima attacked, Derek called out for Stiles completely forgetting about Erica. She could take care of herself, Stiles couldn’t.

Stiles always does stupid things Derek has to deal with and take care of, and the way Stiles doesn’t seem to care about his own sake and life makes Derek go mad with burning outraging fury. And really, doesn’t Stiles have any self-preservation instinct in that stupid brain of his? Why can’t he just care about his life like everybody else and _not_ do reckless things?

The wolf snarls his indignation to that, and Derek maybe starts to get it. Stiles is not like everybody else in first place. Stiles doesn’t think he’s good enough, important enough, he doesn’t think he’s enough everything to deserve salvation. And he’s so totally wrong, for fuck’ sake, and the wolf just wants to put it into his dumb head that, damn, he’s so fucking _more_ , so fucking everything to the wolf and doesn’t even know it.

It’s a bit of a problem, really.

*

The abandoned station and train wagon where Derek lives are the perfect place for research. No one is going to bother them, no one’s been going there for ages, and electricity is available.

Derek goes for a beer while Stiles settles down at the old wooden table the pack arranged in a corner, turns his laptop on and takes a seat in the creaky chair. When Derek sits next to him Stiles’ already working, tapping his fingers fast on the keyboard, thou the Google results are not what he probably expected.

“You really think you’re gonna find information about the Kanima _on the internet_?”

“You never know what you could find in here, dude.” Stiles shakes his head and looks at the beer Derek’s handing to him. “Uhm, I probably shouldn’t but hell, you only live once right? We’re probably going to die anyway, a beer for underage teenager is not the end of the world.”

It’s Derek’ time to shake his head. Stiles does never stop babbling, not for a second, and the fact Derek’s getting used to it is what worries him the most. Stiles accepts the beer and sips a generous swig, eyes always on the screen looking for something useful, something that could help them solve this shit of a situation.

Derek does not realize he’s silently sniffing Stiles neck, inhaling his smell and looking at him spellbound, the other guy too focused on researching to notice. When he does realize, all of a sudden, his eyes opened in horror, Derek instantly pulls as far away as he can without falling off his chair. Stiles gives him a sidelong glance and relaxes on his seat, sighing.

“I’m not saying you were right, because you were not and amazing things can be found on the internet, but I can’t seem to find anything Kanima-related. So, uh, Bestiary is what we got left. Our only resource, actually, and it’s in Latin and it doesn’t matter Lydia translated some parts because, hey!, those were very little parts and we’ve got _pages_ written in Latin we could never understand and that sucks.”

“Okay”, says Derek slowly gathering his thoughts the best he can. “Let’s start with what we know.”

“Aaand, that would be not so much.” Stiles sighs and rubs his eyes.

“What we know”, Derek goes on pretending he didn’t even hear him, “is not much, but maybe it’s enough to start with. We know the Kanima seeks a master, so someone’s controlling Jackson. And we know the killing is somehow related to Jackson parents’ death. That’s something.”

“Yeah, something, like a needle-in-a-haystack-something, like god-we’re-screwed-something.”

“You’re so very positive it hurts me.”

“You’re a sourwolf, everything joyful hurts you.” Stiles laughs at his own line, laughs at Derek’s pissed off expression because it seems the kid _loves_ to piss the Alpha off as many time a day as he can.

Problem is, the wolf seems to giggle too and that’s not even possible, having his inner wolf mocking him around. Derek is seriously temped to snarl at Stiles, just to freak him out a bit, but they really have more important things to do so it’ll have to wait. Because it will happen, sooner or later, and Stiles will stop making stupid jokes about him or wolves generally speaking.

“Good god, you’re allowed to laugh from time to time, you know? I’m starting to think you’re emotionally constipated, and I feel sorry for you, dude.”

“Full moon, Stilinski”, Derek rumbles. “Full moon.”

“Homicidal instincts and shape shifting, yeah, got it.” Stiles gets back in position, beer abandoned on the table, and finally decides to get himself to some serious work. “No time to waste!”

Derek almost smiles –almost, because he’s perfectly able to control himself and the wolf inside, no matter what the wolf itself has to bark about it. They get back to work, and they’re into so much shit it won’t be easy to find a way out.

*

“Is it possible to translate it as-“, Derek turns to a very quiet Stiles just to find him asleep in a not so comfortable position. Yeah, right. It should’ve been pretty obvious, though, ‘cause Stiles was silent and for no reason in the world he would be silent by his own choice. Stiles’ head lays on one hand, his legs crossed upon the chair, an arm disgracefully falling to the floor.

Derek can clearly feel the wolf purring and, really?, it seems more like a domesticated puppy dog than a beast of fear with tooth and claw. But the wolf wants what the wolf wants, and Derek should get used to it. Because the wolf has chosen and nothing in the known world will make it change its mind.

Why Stiles? There’s an answer the wolf is trying to give Derek, but he just can’t put his fingers on it. Stiles is this annoying and pretty much crazy kid, he’s _sixteen_ for god’ sake, and the only true ability he has is to make Derek go mad day and night. The wolf could’ve chosen someone more… well, mature, for a starter. Someone more like Derek, someone who could understand him a little bit better than everyone else –and _no one_ seems to understand Derek that much.

But then again, it’s Stiles.

And yeah, Derek can’t say he hates the kid, not really, because Stiles can be brilliant when he wants to and can do amazing things as well, like saving Derek’s ass when no one was asking him to. Stiles has been dragged into the supernatural and he hasn’t even blinked, just accepted the challenge and kept going on as best as he could.

So, Stiles is a real pain in the ass most of the times, but he’s got his bright sides too. Stiles’ just a human being and still, he’s so much more than that. And it is possible the wolf likes it, yeah. The wolf likes Stiles’ way to react when things go bad, his way to never go down or back off. Stiles is stubborn and complicated, and the wolf knew it before Derek could even catch a glimpse of that.

So the wolf knows reasons Derek knows not too well, but maybe he’s starting to get it.

Because, truth to be told, Stiles is unique in his crazy, hyperactive way, and even if sometimes he’s still scared of Derek, well, he always does his best to find reasons to trust him. Derek’s not sure how or why, but Stiles thinks he’s worth it, he’s worth being saved and trusted, and not even Scott –a werewolf, so similar to Derek in so many ways- seems so sure about that. Derek himself is not sure he’s worth it.

Stiles, on the other hand… Stiles pretends to be the ‘ _I’ll-shoot-first-ask-questions-later_ ’ kind of guy, but things are so very different when it comes to Derek.

Sure, Stiles was the first to say they should kill Derek, but when it came to a choice Stiles didn’t think about it twice and helped him.

Besides his actions, the wolf just likes Stiles. Likes his smile, his hazel eyes and his scent, god, it seems like the wolf’s addicted to it.

As in this very moment, with Stiles deep asleep on his chair, the only thing the wolf thinks about his Stiles’ scent and Derek has to admit it’s not that bad. Not at all.

Stiles smells like young and fresh, like hormones and arousal, like adrenaline and smart. Stiles smells like petrichor, that unique and intense scent of the dried earth after the rain. And Derek likes the rain, likes the way it smells when it’s raining cats and dogs and the sky is grey and dark, it reminds him of summer rainy days he used to spend out in the woods with his mom. And they ran and ran all around the family house, leaves creaking beneath their feet, bathing in the pouring rain with chests full of joy and freedom.

Those days are long gone now, but Stiles reminds Derek of them and it feels like home.

“God, my dad-“

“You can stay here for the night, you’ll probably crash into a tree if you drive like this.”

“Like what? I’m perfectly”, Stiles yawns loudly and his eyes close against his will, “-able to drive.”

“There’s a vacant bed, you can sleep over and be gone in the morning.”

When Derek lays his eyes on Stiles the kid’s already sleeping. Incredible. Derek smiles, for Stiles is definitely not like everybody else, and picks him up. Stiles whimpers in his sleep but moves closer to Derek’s warm body and sighs pleasantly.

Derek shakes his head trying to push the wolf back and tightens the grip on Stiles skinny body, the kid’ smell all around him and Derek doesn’t even notice he’s deeply breathing it in. When they reach the bed in Derek’s knocked together room the werewolf gently lays Stiles on it, blankets him and stares at his relaxed face.

So, that’s the way Stiles looks when his life is not in danger and he doesn’t have to worry about anything, when that endless stream of thoughts is finally put on pause. Stiles looks nice, smell nice, and yeah, maybe Derek likes the feeling of his own fingers gently caressing the kid’s cheek. Maybe he likes the regular beating of Stiles heart, a low and reassuring drum in Derek’s ears.

Maybe he kisses Stiles in the dark of night, maybe is the wolf who’s kissing him. Stiles lips are soft and warm against his, and Derek feels like he could drown in that warmth forever for it can light him up inside, and it feels good.

And sure, Stiles is and always will be a crazy spastic guy, but he’s not as different from Derek as he thought Stiles was. Stiles could look through Derek from the very start, could see all of Derek’s dark and not be too scared and could see the light inside of him, a light Derek even forgot to have. Now he can get it, it took him time but Derek can see that now, the way Stiles saw his best and worst and never backed off. Never went away.

The wolf knew it from the start, and from the way Stiles’ heartbeat races faster when Derek keeps on kissing him softly, well, Stiles knew too what Derek was too dumb to see.

“Will you threaten to kill me again after this or can I consider myself safe forever and always from now on?”

“Always threatening you, Stilinski.” Derek smiles on his lips and kisses him once more. “Now sleep, you idiot. We’re gonna get back to work tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure. Good night, sourwolf.”

When a little bit of the usual anger rises inside Derek’s chest he takes a deep breath to make it go away. It doesn’t go, obviously, and that’s the way it works. That’s how Stiles keeps him alive. So maybe it’s not a bad thing after all. Not _too_ bad, anyway. Derek can deal with anger as long as Stiles is the one provoking it and as long as it means being so very, very alive.

Mating is not as easy as it seems, nevertheless it seems to be worth it. A lot.

 

*Fin*


End file.
